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Ten Cool Facts About Bacteria

1. Bacteria are single-celled organisms cells that can act like plants or animals. They are some of the oldest and most diverse forms of life.
2. Scientists classify bacteria into three shapes, sphere (coccus), spiral (spirillum), or rod (bacillus).
3. Bacteria are very resilient forms of life they can live almost everywhere on earth from near boiling water, to the deepest ocean, inside of rock and even in ice. Some bacteria can even live on radioactive waste. They were here before we were and will probably be here after we are gone because they are just that tough.
4. Your body is full of bacteria, there are actually more bacteria cells in your body than there are human cells. There are more bacteria in your intestine then there are people on earth. Don;t work they are usually friendly and actually help us in lots of ways.
5. Humans have used bacteria to help us in other ways for thousand of years. Bacteria is used to make yogurt and cheese. The flavor of these foods comes from bacterial by products, not exactly bacteria poop but close. Tasty, tasty bacteria poop.
6. Bacteria can produce oxygen for us to breathe – some Scientist estimate I could be as much as half of the oxygen we breathe so next time you see a bacteria in need help out they are helping you.
7. Bacteria can cause food poisoning – But dangerous bacteria is killed when we cook food and grows very slowly in the cold so that is why it is important to properly cook and refrigerate food. I mean if you don’t like being violently ill and dieing it is important but if you like that kind of thing, to each his own.
8. If a bacteria is making you sick it is called and infection. Bacteria causes many types of diseases from zits to Pneumonia.
9. Very serious Bacterial infections can be treated with special drugs that kill bacteria called antibiotics. If a population missuses antibiotics by using them too often, or for diseases like colds and flu that are caused by viruses, antibiotics stop working. The bacteria evolve into what is know as antibiotic resistant forms. MRSA (Multiple-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) is one strain that has become extremely dangerous because it has evolved to survive almost all antibiotics.
10.Bacteria and fungus are often in close proximity and they sometimes compete for resources or try and eat each other. For that reason many of our antibiotics are derived from the natural defenses of fungi against bacteria.